Fantasy Football: How to Break Your Dynasty League Part 2

I will break down every move I made during the startup draft but first I have a confession to make: the league is not broken. Would you be reading right now if I titled this article “how to build a competitive dynasty team”? Probably not.

I do,however,feel like I have as good of a chance as anybody to win this year and came damn close to winning last year.The goal is to make the playoffs no matter how good your team is.I have seen many a team coast through the regular season only to lose week one of the playoffs because of a bad break or two.

This league is a 12 team ppr:

Starting lineup requirements: QB/2RB/3WR/TE/2Flex.

Notice no kicker or team defense. I love this setup as it takes as much of the “luck” factor out as possible. There is always some amount of luck involved in any game and fantasy football is no exception but kickers and team defense are the positions that are the most volatile and lucky, in my humble opinion.

I joined this league and didn’t know a single person in it. I can’t even tell you how I came to join it but I’m glad I did. I jumped in and drew the 1.02.

I didn’t try to trade the pick. Antonio Brown would have been my pick at 1.01 so I took him when he dropped to me at 1.02 and immediately put him on the block. I got a few offers but waited until I got what I thought was enough value to move him and I did just that:

Funny story, this trade somehow sent the league into a tizzy. Dudes were complaining, some calling me names and demanding that I be removed from the league. One guy was particularly fired up and threatened to kick my ass at one point. Lets call him “Josh” since that was his name.

His words:

“This #=€#% idiot just traded the best player in the league for a bunch of garbage”

Anyway, that garbage became Amari Cooper (1.09), Ezekiel Elliott(2.02) and the 2017 1st I received ended up being the 1.01 rookie pick.

Not a bad haul for a “%#?!£ idiot” like me.

Now, before I go on I suspect that you may be thinking:

“This is no strategy..he just got lucky in the draft”

But you will see that I missed on a ton of picks. You don’t have to be perfect to do well with this strategy. You just have to know which assets will be most likely to gain or at least maintain value. I knew when I drafted Cooper and Elliott that they would almost certainly keep their value because of age and situation plus it was likely that they would gain value. The pick I acquired had zero chance at losing value.Draft picks don’t get suspended or tear their acl. They don’t get benched or traded to Cleveland. They will gradually gain value from the time you acquire them until they are on the clock in the rookie draft.

My next three picks went by unceremoniously. I tried to trade out of each spot but didn’t get the value I wanted so I drafted more youth:
3.02 – Kevin White(miss)
4.11 – Tyler Lockett(miss)
5.02 – Michael Thomas (huge win)

So you see, you don’t have to always be right with this method. Even though I missed on White and Lockett they still should hold some value as young players (especially wide receivers) tend to lose value very slowly. I hit big on Thomas and he is a top 10 dynasty asset right now.

What happened next was viewed as borderline collusion by Josh and he ultimately decided enough was enough. There was no way he was going to lower himself to being associated with my complete ineptitude so he decided to leave the league.Josh would be missed by all.

My “mistake(s)” were my next two trades:

6.11 for a 2017 1st
7.02 for two 2017 2nds

That’s right.I had the nerve to actually trade out of the draft for worthless rookie picks.

I know that the Stewart and Brees picks seem to go completely against my strategy but they were too good of values at that point in the draft for me to pass up and I knew I could trade them later to “win now” guy for more than what I paid for them. Always be flexible in your approach and always get guys below market value, even a slight gain in value is still a gain and value and multiple small gains add up quickly.

My draft day trading would end with my next trade:

12.11/13.02 for 17.06/19.06 and a 2017 2nd

Man, if only Josh were still here to see this debacle.

The rest of my draft went as they usually do with a couple hits and a lot of misses:

About Paul Batts

Paul has been playing fantasy football for over two decades and loves to talk,read and write about it.He has an opinion about everything and is sometimes wrong.He can be reached anytime at @unclepauly333 if you want to tell him he sucks.